InsiderOne's Michael Goldberg writes: We were talking about
photography, my friend and I, and he said he'd read something some
prestigious photographer had said. Something like "It's good to know
what kind of photograph you want to take before you take it." My
philosophy is quite different. I take photographs because I want to
see what's in the shadows. I want to see through the commonplace, the
everyday, and find the soul and the spirit. Most of the time, I have
no idea what I'm going to photograph, or what kind of photograph I
want to take, other than that I want to see something I haven't seen
before. Or I want to see things in a way I haven't seen them before,
in ways other than how they appear in real life. I'm not trying to
document reality; I'm looking for the truth reality sometimes hides.
Some of my favorite photographs are almost accidents  I take
chances in the hope of capturing some of the elusive essence. All my
life I've looked at photographs and moving pictures, absorbing,
learning how to see; I've been taking photographs since I was in
grade school. I'd like to take pictures that are almost not
photographs but abstractions, images that suggest feelings. A friend
said my photographs (you'll find some in the "Photograph"
section of insiderone.net) look "like they were developed in trays
full of teardrops." That's it, exactly. Words about photographs.
What's the point? you might wonder. Either the photograph
communicates, or it doesn't. Well, yes and no. Context is important.
Knowing that a photograph was taken three weeks ago, not 30 years
ago, could be meaningful. It doesn't make it a better photograph, but
it does affect your perception. Anyway, I take photographs and I
write. I write and I take photographs. Sometimes I take photographs
of things I write about, or write about things I took photographs of
 really, the line between image and words is blurry. Sometimes
there is no line. It's all the same. I'm trying to tell myself a
story, or show myself a story, or break through the preconceptions so
that what I see is new again, and fresh. Trying to see the world
without the baggage we carry after years of living, or to bring all
those years to the photograph, to the way you see it, to the words on
the page. When it all works, it takes me someplace I haven't exactly
been before. You can come along if you'd like. "I write to remember"
goes an At the Drive-In song. I do that sometimes. I also write to
learn what I think, and to think of things that I haven't thought of
before, or thought of in a particular way before. You look at the
photograph, and you feel something. You want something to happen when
a person looks at your art. You want it to change them. I like to
think that my friend looked at my photographs, and then for the first
time thought they look "like they were developed in trays full of
teardrops." If something I did inspired that line, wow!